DETECTOR DOGS, DYNAMITE DOLPHINS, AND MORE ANIMALS WITH SUPER SENSORY POWERS

Introductions to animals that have been selected for their special senses or abilities to perform tasks ranging from testing treated water to predicting earthquakes.

Focusing on eight main subjects but including briefer notes on many more, the roster includes homing pigeons and honeybees but otherwise goes well beyond the usual sorts of animal “helpers.” The book follows a herd of California brush abatement goats employed to reduce wildfire hazards in terrain that is hard for human firefighters to tackle; introduces Eba, a terrier who helps researchers track endangered orcas and is “possibly the only dog in the world trained to sniff killer whale poop”; and describes how the ICARUS program monitors the movements of tagged livestock from space as a way of predicting earthquakes. Along with explaining how dog noses (those “booger-resistant marvels of engineering”), goat stomachs, whiskers, and other specialized body parts function, the authors suggest simple experiments to test our own abilities to follow a scent trail, use echolocation, detect various (nonpoisonous) foreign substances in water, and other tasks that parallel what these animals can do. Musings on the ethical ins and outs of putting other species to sometimes-dangerous work provide food for thought, as do some of the photos (of, for instance, trained dolphins being airlifted in coffinlike stalls) interspersed with Duncan’s lighthearted cartoon illustrations. Both sorts of pictures portray a racially diverse assortment of human figures, and the source notes and bibliography offer unusually wide arrays of leads to information sources, technical or otherwise, for each chapter.

An engaging survey, thoroughly documented and as ethically nuanced as it is lively.